Doppler worked well into the
night and all the other mavericks had already gone to sleep. He was working on
the time machine for the past 8 hours straight. After attaching a circuit board,
he looked up at a nearby clock. It read 3:12am.

“ I’m a genius!” he
shouted to himself as he inserted the last circuit board. He shut the metal
panel and stood up. He then started to tap buttons on the control panel. The
screen flickered a few time but then cleared to revel the words “Checking
Systems” and a list of the machine’s systems. One by one, a check appeared
next to a system and the word nominal also appeared, all but one checked out.
After the check the speaker on the panel turned on.

“ System integrity down to
72%. Warning! Temporal Emitters are damaged; wormhole is unstable. Only one
transport can be received within a 5-minute window. System overload imminent.”

“At least we can now receive
reinforcements so we can take out X and take over this time!” Doppler said
with a evil smile. He runs upstairs to where Sigma and Vile are sleeping.
“Sigma, Vile! It works!!!”

Meanwhile back in the future,
time has passed regularly. It was 12 hours since the disappearance of the
hunters and the mavericks. Out on the same cliff where X, Zero, and Aurie once
hid, a small part of the 23rd unit was lying in wait, Delta X-tream,
Crimson Nova, and Ice Blue X.

“ This place is a wreck! All
of the defense forces are decimated and the depots are completely destroyed.
From the looks of things, this mission was a success.”

“ If so, why didn’t X or
Zero check in?” Crimson Nova asked.

“ That’s what we’re here
to find out.” Delta answered as he looked through a pair of binoculars. “
Looks like the unit is ready, lets go.”

Delta flew off and shot a
flare. The rest of the 23rd stared to converge on the base. Crimson
Nova readied himself and just as he dashed away, he stopped. He turned around
and looked at his sister who had not even budged.

“ What’s wrong with you
Ice?”

“ Zero…” Ice sighed
sadly, “ What if he’s…”

“ He’s not! I know he’s
not, now come on!” he shouted.

Just then, a large group of
mavericks teleported down. As dispersed, Ice noticed one that was heading for
the central bunker on a hoverboard.

Back in the past, Sigma, Vile
and the rest of the mavericks were gathered around the time machine.

“ So Doppler, get on with
it!” Vile yelled angrily. He was tried and for the fact that Doppler
woke him up, but he was even more off for the fact that he was making him
wait.

“ Yes Doppler, hurry it
up!” Sigma said impatiently.

Doppler didn’t look back. “
Please don’t rush me. It’s not like this thing is in perfect working order
when all you have to do is press a button. You’ve got to take your time and
monitor…”

“ JUST GET ON WITH IT!!!”
everyone yelled.

“ O.K. O.K.!” He started to
tap buttons on the control panel and wind started to blow.

Serges quickly made his way to
the central bunker, dodging plasma blasts and burning debris as he went. It
didn’t take him long to reach it. He charged at the large hole that was once a
large metal door and flew inside. Inside the structure, the same conditions were
happening like the ones in the past.

“ Okay, energy levels are at
their peak.” Doppler shouted over the sounds coming from the machine. He hits
a red button and there was a bright flash in both timelines. As everyone
regained their site, they noticed the light blue wormhole was opened. All the
mavericks stared at the wormhole, all but Doppler. As soon as the wormhole was
activated, a alarm on the time machine started to go off

“ We have less than 5 minutes
before the wormhole collapses.” Doppler announced.

“ Send the transmission!”
Sigma, yelled back at Doppler.

The communicator on Serges
wrist started to began to beep. He tapped a button and Doppler’s voice came
through.

“ Serges, we’re trapped in
the past. We have less than 5 minutes before the wormhole collapses. We need you
to send us additional weapons.”

“ You can’t come here to
get them?” Serges asked.

“ No, the wormhole is
unstable at our end, we can’t send anything but transmissions… the other
time machine is at these coordinates, at sector 5381, a abandoned reploid
factory. We need you to set it up and set the time coordinates to this time,
December 7th, 2029 at the coordinates…”

Outside of the bunker, Ice was
hiding behind the wall next to the hole. She had a small monitoring device in
har hand and she listened and recorded the trasmission. “ So that’s where
they are!” she whispered to herself as she tapped a few buttons on her
communicator. “ Delta! I’m at the central bunker and I located where X,
Zero, Auroran, and the rest of the mavericks, they’re trapped back in time and
Serges is trying to send weapons to them!”

“ I’m on my way Ice. Hold
your position until I get there!” Delta responded over the sound of plasma
fire.

Ice peeped her head around the
corner to see into the bunker. Serges was attaching his hover platform to a
large metal crate. “ These no time, I’m going in!”

“ No Ice, wait! Dammit!! She
never listens!” he shouted angrily as he shot Gravity Beatle and flew towards
the center of the base.

Ice dashed into the bunker.
"Serges!!!" her voice echoed throughout the entire bunker.

"Ah, the Great Ice Blue
X..." Serges said with a calm but evil voice without turning around,
"...this is an unexpected surprise."

" I know what you're
trying to do, I can't allow you to send those back in time!"

" Oh really? Well then,
it'll be a pleasure killing you... DEFEND YOURSELF!!!" he shouted as he
jumped up , did a back flip andfired
his head blaster. Ice quickly drew her Murasame and deflected several of the
blasts and jumped out of the way of the rest. The 2 landed facing each other
about 20 feet away.

" Not bad Ice, but that's
not the only blaster I have now!" He quickly raised his right arm and fired
a fully charged blast at her. She too let off a blast and they canceled each
other out when they collided, causing a large explosion. Through the smoke, Ice
fired a several more blasts that Serges easily dodged, but in doing so, allowed
them to strike his hover platform and the weapons crate, destroying them both.
He turned around and stared at his wrecked hover platform.

" My platform!!!" he
screamed in horror

With that short distraction and
the strong wind from the wormhole, clearing out some of the smoke allowing her
to see, Ice dashed at Serges and proceed to slash him dom come. After he
slumped over and dropped to the floor, Ice stared at the wormhole that was
starting to crackle with electricity and began to collapse.

" No! Zero!!!" she
dashed for the wormhole. Just then Delta X-tream flew into the bunker.

" Ice, NO!" he
shouted at her.

" Delta! Catch!!!"
she shouted as she tossed a small cd from the monitor device at him that he
caught as she jumped into the wormhole just as it disappeared in a bright flash.

“ ICE!!!”

Back in the past, Doppler was
trying desperately to maintain the wormhole.

“ Something is coming
through!” Doppler shouted as the control panel began to shoot sparks.

All the other mavericks stared
wide-eyed at the wormhole in anticipation of the transport. To their surprise,
Ice fell out of the wormhole just as it had collapsed and the time machine
exploded. Everyone gave her one of those “ What in the Hell” looks. She
looked around and noticed that she was surrounded.

“ Heh uh… hi?” she
chuckled nervously.

“ GET HER!!!” Sigma
shouted.

She quickly grabbed her
murasame that was lying next to her and proceed to slash and shoot anything that
moved. Tunnel Rhino tried to sneak up from behind her but got his horn slashed
off again by a fast backwards slash.

“ MY HORN!!!” he cried out
as he staggered backwards into Vile and Sigma who was trying to draw his saber.
The large crying maverick pinned them down.

“ Get off me you stupid
idiot!” Sigma demanded while struggling to get free.

Ice looked at them, smiled and
flashed a V-sign. “ Sorry fellas, I gotta run!” she said as she jumped up
onto a rafter dodging Neon Tiger as he tried to tackle her from behind, knocking
down Sigma, Vile, and Tunnel Rhino again.

“ ARRRRGH!” Sigma cried out
as he watched as Ice moved through the rafters and escaped out a window. He
slowly got to his feet and stared coldly at Neon and Rhino. He then proceeded to
punch out Neon’s lights out again. “ You idiots! How could you let her
escape!? It’s bad enough we have 3 hunters here, now we have 4!” Sigma
yelled out. “ Doppler, start working on modifying the weapons we’ve stolen,
the rest of you, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!”

The all dispersed and went back
to sleep, except for Doppler. He murmured on about working without some type of
rest.

Ice made her way thought the
streets of Newport city, on occasion passing by a few people who would stop and
look as her. She walked around until she reached a newspaper stand. A pile of
newspapers was just derived by a truck. She picked it up, and read the front
headline.

“ PBS Section 7 Weapons Depot
Attacked By Unknown Machines.” it read. She looked at the picture just beneath
the headline. It showed 3 red Fuchicoma’s and X, Zero and Aurie, on top of
them. The text below it read: “PBS section 9 was quick and responsive to stop
the attack yesterday.” She continued reading until she reached the article on
the press conference held at PBS Section 9 HQ. A picture of Chief Aramaki, Major
Kusanagi, Batou, Togusa , X, Zero and Aurie was the first thing she saw. “ So
that’s where the are! I’m coming Zero!!!”she shouted as she dropped the papers and dashed away to look for the
Section 9 HQ.